Category Archives: Theses

In the early nineteenth-century, before the system of private prosecutions gave way to the public prosecution system we now know –and before the rise of many civic welfare institutions and social movements dedicated to combating child abuse, spousal battery, protecting the mentally ill, animal welfare and the like–how did Montreal courts grapple with the issue of family violence? Given the sanctity of the family and the public / private sphere dichotomy, we might expect that they chose not to deal with some of these issues at all. This thesis uses the voluminous primary sources of the judicial archives to look systematically as to how courts dealt with cases involving infanticide, child abuse, family violence and spousal murder. In so doing, a clearer picture of the causes of these forms of social pathology and its similarities across jurisdictions and time periods emerges, as well as an indication that courts were willing to interpose themselves into the family sphere to protect children and vulnerable spouses against physical aggression.

Using the judicial archives, this thesis seeks to recreate the complex and overlapping legal regime that governed master-servant relations during this formative time in Montreal’s economic life. While traditional artisan-based labor relations were breaking down, these relationships became increasingly contractual in nature. In a system that was weighed in favor of preserving employer’s rights vis-à-vis their employees, courts nonetheless enforced servants’ rights against their masters as well. This study explores the nature of the offenses related to the breakdown of labor relationship as they were enforced within the city limits, and the differences in legal approach towards these issues outside of the city. This thesis was published in two parts by the McGill Law Journal in 2001.